


home is where it hurts

by crownsandbirds



Category: If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio
Genre: Homophobia, M/M, a midsummer night's dream production, alexander and colin stick together after everything, forgive me if i fucked up, james and oliver are goddamn sweethearts i love them, low-key violence, richard and alexander hate each other from the beginning, richard is an asshole im sorry, they move in together it's sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 23:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12618320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownsandbirds/pseuds/crownsandbirds
Summary: Alexander would always, always go back to the lake. It was a constant presence, a never-ending pull towards the void inside himself. He wondered if he hadn't drowned alongside Richard on that morning.





	home is where it hurts

**Author's Note:**

> "home is not a harbour  
> home is where it hurts
> 
> my home has no heart  
> my home has no veins  
> if you try to break in  
> it bleeds with no stains
> 
> my brain has no corridors  
> my walls have no skin  
> you can lose your life here  
> 'cause there's no one in."
> 
> (home is where it hurts - camille)

Alexander would always, always go back to the lake. It was a constant presence, a never-ending pull towards the void inside himself. He wondered if he hadn't drowned alongside Richard on that morning. 

A chill, eerie morning. He'd had no idea what he was doing then, couldn't have possibly imagined things would go down the way they had, and yet. He remembered the distinct feeling of being truly, down to the bone, a character in a Shakespeare tragedy, the feeling of being unable to imagine any other conclusion to their plot, the feeling of ripping his own humanity out of his chest with a single word.

_ Nothing.  _

It played over and over again in his brain. It never stopped breaking havoc between his neurons during his last days at Dellecher and it certainly didn't stop even after he'd bolted out of there with all the desperate ferocity of a dying man, with a last glance and venomous smile and cutting remark to the others (villains are villains, after all, and he refused to back down from his part, from his carefully built character made to fit in with the rest of them) and a last kiss pressed to Colin's lips, along with a whispered promise that he would wait for him. 

He'd thought leaving it (most of it) all behind would make things easier. Not seeing the damn lake everyday, not sleeping in the same bed he'd nearly overdosed on, not walking on the same stage and flipping through the same books and always having to use James' pen to write down observations on his lines because he never had one on him. 

He'd been wrong. The lake wasn't physical. It was relentless and ominous and would never leave him alone. 

If he was a better person, if he was James or Oliver or Wren or Filippa or Meredith, he would've probably killed himself a long time ago. Years after their last  _ King Lear _ , years after Oliver's prison, one of them had asked him how he managed to live with the guilt. Yes, they were all guilty, but Alexander had been the one to even raise the possibility of  _ nothing  _ in the first place.

"How can you live with that?" they'd asked. "How can you not hate yourself after what we've done?"

He'd smirked and taken a sip of his tea. " _ I have looked upon the world for four times seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury I never found man that knew how to love himself _ ."

All villains are cowards. Decades of playing villains meant decades of cowardice. Alexander would run from the entire world if it that's what it took to survive and protect the handful of people that saw him as more than a very realistic Cassius. 

_ Nothing. _

Maybe he would get that tattooed over his heart. 

-

Ever since he could remember, he'd been completely and entirely jealous of Oliver and James. 

Not of them as individuals necessarily, but of them as a  _ pair _ . Oliver and James were truly, in every sense of the word, a pair, of the kind Alexander had only ever seen in books, old, classical books that talked about turning a river into blood and defeating gods. 

He hadn't even been aware it was possible for such a bond to grow in modern days, but whenever he saw the two of them bumping into each other and laughing, whenever he heard their voices mingling together like two violins in an orchestra, he realized it wasn't impossible, just really fucking rare. Rare enough for him to consider himself lucky to be able to witness such a thing. 

It was beautiful. Inspiring. A walking masterpiece. The world seemed to glow and stand a little steadier on its feet when Oliver and James fell asleep on top of each other on their desk. Their entire group breathed a little more easily when the two of them, the prince and his companion, Hamlet and his Horatio, arrived together at Frederick's classroom and sat down side by side. 

"Fucking fags." Richard would whisper under his breath every single time, and Alexander would hear it every single time. 

He wondered how Frederick would react if he pulled out the very real knife he had hidden on his bag and threw it right in the middle of Richard's eyes. 

-

After everything, after Alexander was already settled in a strange apartment on the other side of the coin, on another world entirely, after he had taken deep breaths and organized his furniture and put his clothes on the wardrobe, he'd grabbed a phone and kept his promise. 

Colin had sounded so relieved when he received the call with the information about Alexander's new address, so unmistakably happy and unable to hide it despite how good an actor he was, that Alexander was starting to think he'd made a single right decision in the middle of all his terrible ones. 

Colin had visited a few times during his last year at Dellecher, had sheepishly brought tickets for Alexander to watch all his plays and beamed like the sun when Alexander went to every single one. They'd talked. A lot. Most of the time they sat down with glasses of wine and cigarettes and talked. Sometimes they reenacted their favorite scenes, trying on parts they would never get, which inevitably led to them laughing their wits off or to Alexander throwing Colin over his shoulder and carrying him to the bedroom, and to them playfully repeating the lines to one another as Colin got ready to leave for Dellecher again on Monday mornings. 

They'd moved in together as soon as Colin graduated, because it felt right. It felt like home. 

Suddenly, Alexander had someone who took his morning coffee completely different from the way he himself did, which led to arguments over how much sugar they had to buy. He had someone who used far too much shampoo and left books scattered everywhere and had no realistic sense of time, and someone who remembered he loved the chocolate cake from that little bakery on the other side of town and never forgot any important dates. He had someone who went to bed with him and allowed them to read their own books without talking much, thighs pressing together under the covers. He had someone who held him tight after nightmares in which Alexander was the one who drowned in the lake, and who kissed a soft line down his neck, murmuring sleepily "If you ever fall, I'm jumping after you. I'm not letting you drown."

It was far more than he deserved, but Alexander was a villain and a coward and a lot more happy than he had the right to be.

-

Their  _ A Midsummer Night's Dream _ production had been a complete nightmare.

Richard had had the right to behave however manically he wanted, since his Nick Bottom was arresting enough and all he needed to do was keep the audience's attention in him anyway, and his maleficent glances and mutters of  _ they should be the fairies _ towards James and Oliver's playful pillow fights during rehearsal breaks had been enough to make Alexander's Oberon far more villainous than it should be. 

With no other way to retaliate besides wrapping himself even tighter around Meredith during their scenes together and hissing his lines like he wanted to cut through diamond with words alone, the tension between him and Richard had reached its apex when Richard had stormed in the middle of rehearsal to stare furiously at Alexander after he'd grabbed Meredith's waist and pulled her strongly against his chest in a movement too sexual to be accepted.

Gwendolyn had yelled something but they had been too busy snarling at each other to pay attention at her. Meredith had kept quiet for once in her life, backing off from Alexander and running to the others to avoid making things worse. 

"Aren't you fucking  _ gay _ ?" Richard had spat the word as if it was the most disgusting thing he'd ever had to say out loud. "We already have two people too many pretending to be straight, we  _ don't _ need another one!"

He could hear the others fidgeting on the side, stealing glances to each other. Two people too many. Alexander had wanted to kick Richard out of the stage. "Aren't you Nick Bottom, whom, if I recall, has no reason for being in his scene?" he'd almost been able to feel the venom sliding out of the corner of his lips, trailing down his neck. His smirk had been sharp enough to stop Richard dead in his tracks, even if for only a moment. "Stop interrupting rehearsal to confirm my homosexuality - something that's already obvious enough to everyone but you. Whatever you want to talk about with me, I'm sure it can wait until we're done here."

Alexander couldn't know what finally ignited Richard's fury, if it'd been the calmness with which he'd spoken, if it'd been the way he'd purposely jutted out his hip to seem more feminine than his part allowed him to, if it'd been the last sentence challenging him to take this outside, but all he'd heard was a "You damned faggot-" before Richard was throwing himself at him and Camilo was jumping to the stage to put himself between them, and that had been it. 

Oliver and James had hurried after Alexander during the twenty minute break everyone had been forced to take, and James had whispered in that princely, pristine voice, "What was  _ that _ about?"

Alexander had turned around, given the two of them his brightest, most reassuring smile. "Conflict happens. He was mad I could touch Meredith and he couldn't, I think. Nothing too bad." he'd glanced at how they were pressed together, shoulder to shoulder, and smiled even wider. "You two don't have any other scenes tonight, right? Why don't you go to the Castle? I'll talk to Gwendolyn." 

They'd glanced at each other and Alexander had been once more attacked by that strong feeling of having to protect something purer than the world, something so clear and deep and loving. "Are you sure? We don't want to make her even more mad."

"Just go. The less people, the less tension." he'd pushed at their shoulders and they'd shrugged and turned to leave, but James had looked at Alexander over his shoulder and asked, "Two people pretending to be straight?"

Alexander had raised his brow and made a dismissive gesture. "Hell if I know." 

-

Colin's Puck had made everything worse. 

Puck was supposed to be played by another third year, but they'd went down sick, and Colin, second-year, insufferable in his gentle cockiness and general politeness, had been dragged to take their place. 

Alexander had been physically unable to keep his eyes off of him from the start. His sensual touches and slow smirks were immediately shifted from Meredith towards Colin, who usually dealt with the whole thing with a smile on his face and every so often blushed and tripped over his own feet whenever Alexander grabbed at his chin to look into his eyes and murmur his lines close to the other's lips.

Gwendolyn had been entirely delighted by how entrancing the new-found, accidental pair had turned out to be, and didn't slow them down as much as silently encouraged them. The others had watched closely, speechless, and Oliver and James had seemed more puzzled than anything, amused but wary, as if they hadn't known this was allowed but were now too entranced to ask. 

One would think Richard had calmed down after his girlfriend was left mostly alone, but he'd paced around, fuming and getting angrier and angrier every single time Alexander reached out to take Colin's wrist and pull him to himself. 

One day, after everyone had left to the Castle, Richard had thrown Alexander against a wall outside, trapping him with a strong, threatening hand to his throat.

"Can't you keep your-" he'd cut himself off, apparently too pissed off for words. "Keep your disgusting sexual urges away from my fucking stage?!"

They had been alone, at night, hidden behind trees, and Richard's hand twitched against Alexander's pulse point.

Alexander had smirked, licked his lips. "I'll play Oberon however I damn please. Colin gets weak on the knees when I touch him. Gwendolyn looks like it's the best thing she's ever seen in her life. It works. And I _like_ _it._ It's not your stage, we're not your actors. If I want to kiss your girlfriend or Colin on the mouth in front of an audience and they allow me to, I will." Richard had looked a word away from smashing Alexander's head until it was a bloody pulp. "If you ever touch me again, I will throw myself against this wall until I break my bones and tell everyone you did it. I'm a far better liar than you. Good luck being Ceasar next year." 

Richard had stepped back after that, an incredulous look on his face. "You wouldn't."

Alexander had laughed like a maniac. "Wouldn't I? Look into my eyes and tell me I wouldn't."

After a few moments of staring, Richard had punched the wall beside Alexander's face and stormed off, and Alexander knew it was either himself or their resident tyrant.

The idea of being the Cassius to Richard's Ceasar next year had sent him into another fit of insane laughter.

-

He hadn’t laughed when he’d said that fateful _nothing_. He’d remembered the precious thing between James and Oliver that Richard had been so eager to destroy. He’d remembered the fleeting, loving glances between those two, their giggles and smiles and the way they moved like there was an invisible thread connecting them. He’d remembered Colin’s lips on his and his name being moaned close to his ear and nails tracking red lines on his back. He’d remembered Meredith’s destroyed, battered state after the fight. He’d remembered James’ arms littered with marks of angry fingers. He’d remembered Oliver running to help Filippa after she’d been attacked on the assassination scene. He’d heard Richard’s ferocious voice, _you goddamn faggot._

 

He’d felt like Hecate coming out of the water. 

 

_ Nothing. _

 

There had been nothing more to say. There still wasn’t. 

**Author's Note:**

> i really really love Alexander Vass (thanks @richelieux on tumblr for giving me the idea)


End file.
